RHYS PRIESTLAND last night revealed the personal torment he has suffered during the autumn internationals has driven him to seeing a sports psychologist.

Priestland has been heavily criticised by Welsh supporters for his recent displays and made two crucial mistakes yesterday with first-half missed kicks to touch

And the Scarlets outside-half admitted he had reached a new low after last week’s Samoa defeat.

Priestland has not checked his Twitter site and, to try to restore his fragile confidence, has enlisted the help of sports psychologist Andy McCann.

“I have been pretty down over the last couple of weeks,” he said.

“The poor performances against Samoa and Argentina were a lot to do with me because I have been playing with blinkers on. After Samoa I did not want to leave the flat or see anyone.

“I never go on the field and not give 100% but I felt I had let people down. Cutting myself away was the problem because I buried my head in the sand and did not ask for help.

“Typically I try and sort things out myself but I was not able to do that. I knew I had to sort things out in the build-up to the New Zealand game.

“I have started to see the sports psychologist we used during the World Cup because I had nothing to lose. When you are not playing well supporters start to turn on us and we were booed off in the first two games.

“I have come off Twitter. I know there has been a lot of negative press written about us in the first two games but I stayed away from it.

“The first bit of negativity was when I was watching the Ireland-Argentina game in the changing room and I heard Keith Wood saying we did not have a chance. At that point I knew I had done well not to read anything!”

But, despite suggesting he was happy with hie mental state for New Zealand, Priestland will no doubt be scrutinised again for missing kicks to touch.

“We had a certain game plan to go for the corner rather than taking points,” he added.

“There was method in our madness because we wanted to put them under pressure. It was disappointing because I missed two kicks and it could have made a difference in the first half.”

“I missed touch with the first kick, the second one I thought was in but they called it dead.

“But even after I missed the kicks I felt no different and still tried things.”